Assorted content for your holiday reading. – The Star tells the stories of a few of the people working to make sure Christmas runs smoothly. And Erin McCormick points out other workers stuck in precarious (and largely care-related) positions who don’t have a choice but to take on holiday shifts
Continue readingTag: consumer affairs
Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – The Oxford Martin School has published a new report on the spread of inequality. And Noah Smith discusses the role of offshoring along with automation in stacking the economic deck against workers. – Meanwhile, Mike Blanchfield reports on the U.S.’ refusal to allow
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Bill Kerry discusses the role of inequality in causing a global financial meltdown Leaving aside the greed and stupidity of so many of the world’s financial institutions and, particularly, their leaders, it is easy to see why poor Americans jumped at what they
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Jerry Dias and Dennis Williams write about the fundamental changes which we should be seeking to make to NAFTA in order to ensure that workers’ and citizens’ interests aren’t left out of trade rules: Meaningful Nafta renegotiation must comprehensively focus on balanced
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Tom Parkin writes about the growing opposition to a Lib infrastructure bank designed to turn public needs into private profits at our expense: Paying higher fares, fees and tolls because of a political decision to use more expensive private capital would be
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Erica Johnson reports that the problem of bank employees being pushed to fleece customers (legality be damned) is common to all of Canada’s major banks. And Lisa Wright reports that the result will be a national investigation. But it’s appalling that it
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Owen Jones writes that we should give credit for the failure of the Trans-Pacific Partnership to the popular opposition which will be need to push back against Donald Trump, rather than pretending it represents a win for Trump himself: That Trump has
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading.
– Branko Milanovic examines whether the U.S.’ tax system is actually progressive all the way to the top of the income spectrum – and finds that there’s not enough data about the treatment of the extremely wealthy to be sure. And Robert Cribb and Marco Chown Oved discuss the latest Panama Papers revelations showing the large-scale stashing of Canadian assets in the Bahamas.
– Laura Wright reports that Canada’s federal government has approved secret surveillance technology which leaves the public in the dark as to which of its communications are subject to eavesdropping.
– Meanwhile, the federal government is rather less interested in the public safety concerns involved in documenting the fires on the First Nations reserves within its jurisdiction – having abandoned that task in 2010.
– Ross Belot writes that there’s no point in approving and building new pipelines at the moment other than political posturing. And the CP reports on the connection between air pollution from tar sands developments and the health of residents of the area.
– Finally, Adnan Al-Daini is encouraged by Sweden’s move toward a repair-not-replace mindset, and suggests the idea should spread further:
Continue readingIf more countries followed the Swedish example, think of the impact that would have globally on our CO2 emissions. Manufacturing goods is energy intensive. The website “Fix it-Don’t replace it” gives the example of the iphone6 where 85% of its lifecycle’s carbon footprint is from manufacturing it, not using it and another 3% from shipping it.
Climate change is with us already and such measures are needed as a matter of urgency. Such a proposal should not be a party political issue. Good quality jobs would be created in the country where the appliance is used. It would save the consumer money, and it is good for the environment.
Could we do something similar in Britain? Does this have to be a political issue and parties have to have it in their manifestos before it could happen? I don’t see where disagreement between parties could arise.
Accidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading.- Scott Vrooman rightly makes the point that increased wealth at the top tends to splash outside a country’s borders rather than trickling down. And CBC News reports on how that process has been facilitated by KPM…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Up for discussion
Kady O’Malley has already highlighted a few of the noteworthy resolutions (PDF) submitted to this weekend’s NDP policy convention. But I’ll point out a few more which look to me to deserve attention.First, in the category of simple good ideas regardles…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on how user reviews and the wisdom of crowds don’t do us much good if businesses are able to silence anything that raises concerns about them. For further reading…– Laura K makes a similar point here. – CBC reports on libel chill here, including a discussion of the Ottawa
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on the Cons’ presumption that any individual who breaches the social contract must be punished with a total lack of freedom – and their curious lack of any similar principle when it comes to corporate wrongdoing. For further reading…– I’ve dealt with issues relating to mandatory minimum sentences plenty
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Naomi Klein discusses how entrenched corporate control through trade and investment agreements will prevent us from making any real progress against climate change. And Cory Doctorow weighs in on the Cons’ FIPA sellout of Canadian sovereignty, while highlighting the NDP’s petition to stop
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Andrew Jackson writes that increases in Canadian inequality have been the result of deliberate policy choices: In an important recent book, Inequality and the Fading of Redistributive Politics, Keith Banting and John Myles argue that, while rooted in the market, politics has
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Martin Regg Cohn discusses EllisDon’s ability to dictate political choices by the Ontario Libs and PCs as a prime example of corporate manipulation of the political system: What Wynne didn’t say was that EllisDon, its subsidiaries and executives, have been shockingly generous donors
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Glen Hodgson and Brenda Lafleur explain how Canada’s lower and middle classes alike have been left out of any economic growth as a result of increased inequality: We believe the more accurate interpretation is that after worsening in the 1980s and 1990s, income
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Annie Lowrey reports on the still-spreading blight of income inequality in the U.S.: An updated study by the prominent economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty shows that the top 1 percent of earners took more than one-fifth of the country’s total income
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading.- Diana Carney discusses the public’s growing recognition of inequality in Canada:I see three root causes of our concern with inequality in Canada (three seems to be the magic number). First, there is a general l…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On abdications of duty
Shorter Gerry Ritz:If unscrupulous businesses want to fleece Canadian suckers consumers, far be it from we Conservatives to stand in their way.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review – May 8, 2012
Tuesday, May 8 saw another day of debate on the Cons’ omnibus budget legislation – and another day of general non-responsiveness from the Cons as to its actual effects. But that wasn’t for lack of important contributions from the opposition benches. The Big Issue Marie-Claude Morin raised issues about the
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